Sony: PSP Go was an experiment that paid off in knowledge

It's been a rough eight months since the launch of Sony's PSP Go, but the company has chalked its UMD-less handheld up to being an "experiment." In an interview with MCV, Sony exec Andrew House was asked whether the PSP Go is internally regarded as a sales success. House said the portable console was launched to learn more about what consumers want as well as where their behavior is going.

Sony has "definitely learned a lot" according to House, and those lessons are more valuable than high sales volume. He said Sony was getting signals from consumers that an all-digital device was the way to go, but the company needs to "recognize that consumers like their packaged media library."

While Sony's portable digital platform may not have resonated with the hearts and wallets of customers, Apple's iPod touch and iPhone have succeeded in carving out a slab of the market. Both are widely functional devices compared to the PSP Go and have access to a plentiful ecosystem of cheap games.

Sony is rumored to be working on a new PSP, but there's no word on what direction it will take in terms of content delivery. Even if the device uses some form of optical drive and discs, it seems inevitable that the PSP Go's digital aspects will carry over to ease the transition away from physical media.